Going Backward--Mackinaw to Leland

Terrapin finally made it under the bridge!!

Friday, Aug. 23^rd, we left Mackinaw City traveling under the bridge with Tom and Nancy Rea aboard Terrapin.  Around Grey’s Reef we were contacted on the radio by Marty and Suzanne aboard Alizann, the 48' Kadey Krogan that had been in front of us at Thunder Bay.  They too had just crossed under the bridge returning home to Charlevoix from their Superior adventure.  After visiting for a bit, they invited us to come to their home for dinner while we were in Charlevoix—an offer we accepted with delight. 

Alizann

Terrapin heading for Beaver Island

Shortly after clearing Grey’s Reef, Terrapin turned toward Beaver Island and we headed south to Petosky.  John and Mary Morgan aboard Passport were already at Petosky and we had a good visit with them that night in addition to wishing Mary  happy birthday a day early.  Susan and Chuck aboard Blue Moon and the crew of Barefoot'n (both loopers)  joined us for docktails.

 

Enchanting mushroom houses

Check out the landscaping!

Saturday we ventured on to Charlevoix which has to be one of the nicest stops in northern Michigan—beautiful town, wonderful marina, great beach.  Just has it all.  The landscaping around the mushroom houses on Round Lake was in full bloom, fun to compare to how it had looked when we were last here in mid-June. Tom and Nancy Rea were docked two slips away.  We talked them into dominoes and had a good time playing partners, except the men won all the games. 

l-r  Rusty, John, Tom, Jimmy, Zita, Barbara, Macy

Beautiful wooden boat in the boathouse
under Jimmy and Macy's condo.

Sunday, Jimmy and Macy, who we had met on the south shore of Lake Superior, invited us to cocktails at their summer condo home that evening.  Jimmy provided taxi service with his dinghy.  Their other guests were friends from Texas (Jimmy and Macy's winter home), Barbara and Rusty, and Charlevoix neighbors, John and Zita.  John and Zita’s boathouse has been featured on HGTV and the segment on their home is scheduled to air in October.  John was one of the founders of Four Winn’s boats.  All were very interesting and enjoyable people.  We later ate at Grey Gables and had a delicious meal.

Grey Gables

Winn's boathouse

During the afternoon Monday, Tom and I walked to the beach and hunted for Petosky stones and finally went for a dip.  The water was 68 degrees. Tom seemed to gravitate to the Petosky stones.  I found only one, but it was a beauty!  Petosky stones are prized finds here.  The Petosky is Michigan’s state stone—a marine fossil that was a colony coral.  The hexagonal pattern is due to the internal structure of the coral.  Shops feature jewelry made from fine examples.  President Obama even has one on his desk in the Oval Office.  ( http://www.petoskeynews.com/news/featured/pnr-white-house-courtesy-photopete-souza-20130121,0,6701849.photo)

Tom hunting for Petosky stones.

A couple of our finds.

 Monday  evening Marty (from Alizann) picked us up in his ski boat and took us to their home on an arm of Lake Charlevoix. 

Marty and Suzanne's home

Marty and Suzanne

They have just retired from East Lansing and moved full time to the Boyne City/ Charlevoix area.  It was such fun to ride in a small, fast boat and see a section of the lake we would not have seen otherwise. Suzanne prepared a fabulous meal with fresh farmer’s market veggies.  We ate on the terrace enjoying  a great sunset over the lake while comparing anchorages and adventures on Superior.  We have truly been blessed to meet amazing people all along this journey. 

Tuesday we headed off with Terrapin, destination Leland.  Plans changed when we reached the top of Traverse Bay and the weather radar screen started becoming mostly red and orange with lightening strikes popping up frequently.  We ended up ducking into Northport on the east shore of the Leelanau Peninsula just ahead of the storm.  Most of it went south of us, but we heard that Leland was taking a pounding so we were glad to have made the decision we did.

Wednesday the weather calmed and we went on to Leland.  Leland is such a neat little town.  We enjoyed it with Alice and David earlier this year and again on this stop.  We went to dinner with Tom and Nancy, eating at a restaurant right next to the roaring river that runs through town.

Thursday Lake Michigan was forecast to be smooth, so we said good-bye to the Reas and headed across to Wisconsin.  Tom and Nancy have been another wonderful part of the trip.  We are hoping to meet up with them on the river system somewhere.

Soo to Mackinac/ Mackinaw??

Since our time on the east shore of Lake Superior was cut short and we had a few extra days,  we decided to take the scenic cruise back to Mackinaw City. We turned off the St. Mary's River and followed  St. Joseph's Island Channel.  Our first night's stop was at Richard's Landing Marina on St. Joseph's Island.  The small community was hosting a triathlon and we had a chance to observe the young children swimming, running and bicycling.

Richard's Landing Marina

Running course

On your mark, get set, go!

The next day,  Sunday, Aug. 18th, we anchored in Dead Boy's Cove (horrible name for a beautiful spot) on the NW side of Campememt D'Ours Island and to the SE of Picture Island.  Close by is another anchorage (between Picture Island and Sapper Island) that is apparently the local party cove complete with a jumping-off rock for kids large and small.  We dinked over to get a better look.   It was empty by nighttime, but we were well anchored and didn't care to move for one night.  This area is very North Channel-like with granite outcroppings surrounded by cool, clear water.

Party Cove

Nearly every outcropping is home to a cottage.

On Monday we moved on to Bruce Mines, a small marina rather shallow with good floating docks.  Tuesday we decided to go into Drummond to clear customs, which went quickly and smoothly, and then on into DeTour Marina.  Last year when we stayed at DeTour we were one of the last boats of the season.  They closed on Labor Day and completely rebuilt the docks reopening on July 1, 2013. There are now floating docks that can accommodate about twice the number of boats.  While there we started meeting loopers once again.  Pazza Bella ( Mike and Veronica Wisneski from Mount Pleasant, SC),  dARrF V (Ray and Arline Cutro from Belleair Beach, FL), and Spiritus (Eddy and Linda Johnsen from Navarre, FL).  Many had stories of waiting at the Erie Canal this summer.

Wednesday we went into Mackinaw City Marina, passing Mackinac Island enroute.

The lakers are always impressive.

The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island

Lighthouse across from Mackinac Island

Old fort on Mackinac Island

Square rigged sailing vessel
moving right along through
Straits of Mackinac

Soon after we arrived in Mackinaw City,  a new looper came by to introduce himself as Tom Rea (pronounced Ray).  My Tom did a double take and asked him to repeat what he had said.  They both had a good laugh after my Tom introduced himself as Tom Ray.  We went out to dinner with them and their guests, Steve and Kathy, who were leaving that evening.  Both couples are from Petosky, but keep their boats at Duncan Bay in Cheboygan.  Tom and Nancy Rea had officially begun the loop 3 weeks ago, though they were still in their home cruising grounds.  They laughed and said they were having a hard time getting under the bridge!

Nancy and Tom Rea with friends, Kathy and Steve

Thursday, Tom and I were true tourists.  We walked to Fort Mackinac passing the old lighthouse along the way.

Firing muskets

Garden at the fort

Natie American encampment

Old Mackinaw City lighthouse

Statue of Alexander Henry--fur trader
One of many wooden carved statues around the city.
I did not realize that a stalker was peeking out from behind the statue.

Overview of the fort

Preparing cannon  to blow up bridge??

Costumed demonstrator explaining the Voyager canoes

Walking home we bought pasties for future dinners, enjoyed walleye and whitefish chowder at Scalawags, and ate Mackinaw fudge ice cream. All this in addition to Alice's caramel corn that Nancy gave us that morning.  I'm sure the calories we walked off did not equal the calories we consumed.  Oh well!

Back to the Soo

Monday morning Tom announced that he thought we should leave Michipicoten Island and run straight back to the Soo.  He knew I had not been feeling well and not sleeping well (actually he said I was a bitchy sicko—now I know you all know that could not possibly be true!).  So we set out for a long day—a 120 mile run, much of which we did run—fuel be damned!  I slept most of the trip, but Tom awakened me as we approached the site of the Edmond Fitzgerald.  He had put the lat/long coordinates in the GPS and it only veered from our plotted course by a few miles.  We couldn’t believe our luck when we saw the outline of the towers on the sonar.  Tom honked the horn 29 times as we passed over her.  We needed Gordon Lightfoot singing and it would have been perfect.  For those who don’t know the story, the Edmond Fitzgerald , a 729 foot freighter loaded with iron ore, broke in half and sank in an extremely violent storm with the loss of all 29 aboard on Nov. 10,1975.   She has been visited by submersibles several times, but she was only dove once.  The two men spent eight minutes on the wreck and had to decompress for over three hours in 40 degree water.  They stated they would never do it again

Chartplotter screen passing over Edmund Fitzgerald
(click on picture to enlarge)

After we arrived back at the American Soo and cleared customs, I had a complete check over and was given some prescriptions that seem to have taken care of the problem.  The next day I caught up on laundry and Tom made an oil run to Walmart.  Later that day we met two looper couples from New Brunswick, Emery and Patti McGraw aboard Wanderer and Karen and John aboard ???.  They were aboard two 32  foot trawlers which they had trailered to Lake Ontario and launched near the thousand islands area.  They were very nervous about the Mississippi River section of the trip—so much so that they were considering trailering around it.  We went to dinner with them that night and hopefully calmed some of their fears.

Band performing at pavillion Thursday evening

Sculpture of three bears catching a fish

Pavillion on Ontario side.
A wedding was taking place here Friday.

Wednesday morning we went across the border to Bondar Marina in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Yes, we had to clear Canadian customs again, but that is just a matter of a phone call—much less complicated than US customs.  As we pulled into the marina, who should be our next slip neighbor but Sluggo.  We had followed Sluggo around Lake Superior, never quite getting an opportunity to meet her crew.  We finally introduced ourselves to Maedell and John Stafford and enjoyed their stories over cocktails that night.  They are from San Francisco, but bought and keep their boat (a 36’ Monk trawler) either in Michigan or the east coast.  They also have a home in Florida and are considering moving Sluggo there in the future.  Wonderful people.  Wish we had caught up with them at the beginning of the Superior trip.

Engine

Our car was appropriately named
the Lake Superior

Occasional view of Lake Superior

Ripe raspberries

Rounding a tight curve

Beautiful scenery as we passed many inland lakes

Beaver Falls

Tom by train logo

High trestle crossing Montreal River

Thursday, we hopped aboard the Agawa Canyon Train for an all day excursion.  The trip takes four hours to reach the canyon—going over high tressles, coming close to granite bluffs, and showing brief glimpses of Lake Superior along the way.  At the canyon we had an hour and a half to stretch our legs.  There were hiking paths to two waterfalls, Beaver Falls and Bridal Veil Falls.  Wild raspberries were ripe along the path, so we munched as we walked.  After reboarding we went to the dining car for lunch.  Returning to our seats we had a good visit with the people across the aisle, a couple from the Detroit area. 

We decided to spend Friday in Soo also and just rest up.  Tom went to the Bush Plane Museum and I shopped and found my mother of the bride dress.  Sluggo had guests, Chris and Hillary, arrive from San Francisco and invited us over for cocktails.  Chris and Hillary have built two sailboats.  They purchased the hull and deck and did all the rest themselves.  WOW!  Talk about knowing your boat!

Chris, Hillary, John and Maedell aboard Sluggo

Otter Head and Michipicoten Island

Saturday morning, August 10th, we waved good-bye to our new Krogan friends, and set out for Otter Head anchorage on the mainland.  It was a 60 mile run with a mildly beam sea.  We left the Slates early, so we arrived at Otter Head early afternoon. Along the way we passed steep rock bluffs both on the mainland and island.  Interspersed between the bluffs are large, flat "streams" of gravel.  We theorized that these must be glacial paths. We are becoming quite the amateur geologists--at least in our own minds!

Glacial pathways?

Just before arriving, we passed the beautiful Cascade Waterfalls.  There is not a good anchorage at the falls and the distance from our planned anchorage was a bit too far and too rough to comfortably ride by dinghy,  so we just enjoyed the falls from a distance as we passed.

Cascade Waterfalls

We chose to anchor in Old Dave's Harbour (just for you, David) and were amazed that we once again had a beautiful spot to ourselves.

Private anchorage at Old Dave's.

View out to Superior

 The water was deep, and we actually dropped anchor in nearly 40 feet of water.  We let out lots of scope so it was good we did not have company.  After checking and rechecking our set, we dinked to shore by the abandoned assistant lightkeeper's house and followed a path to the lighthouse.

Assistant lightkeeper's house
now abandoned.

Such an interesting mushroom.   It has been a very
cool rainy summer and the fungus are thriving!

Steps along the trail leading to the lighthouse.

When we reached the lighthouse, which is now automated as almost all of them are, we were delighted to find the ground covered with RIPE blueberries.  Of course, we had to snack as we went along.

Finally, lots of ripe blueberries.

Otter Island Lighthouse

Tom stopping for a snack.  These
wild blueberries do not grow on bushes.

The shoal water that the lighthouse marks reminded us a bit of Big Sur.  The rock was distinctly two types--we think granite and rhyolite.  The rhyolite trenches were between the granite.  At least that's our theory!

Steep rocky drop-offs

Interesting rock trenches

Tom at end of Otter Island

Bonnie mentioned we might see caribou on the bluffs in the evening, but no such luck.  The sunset, however, put on a good show.

Sunday we decided to move on to Quebec Harbor on Michipicoten Island, about 40 miles south.

At one time many fishing families lived here.  Today it looks mostly abandoned.  Again we were the only boat anchored in this large, well-protected harbor.  Tom offered to take me to the bed and breakfast, but I decided to decline for some reason.  Several boats have sunk along the shoreline.  The skeletons of a few are above the surface.

Boat skeleton

              The old jailhouse that stood at Quebec Mines was moved here from the NE end of the island

My B and B option.